Dimitry Leger - God Loves Haiti

Me too, the young man said, and then the nun, composing herself with ceremonial solemnity, took a step back and said, I must return to work now. I hope you understand.

Surprise registered on the young man’s face, but then so did respect and love, so he said, I understand. Go do your thing. You look great.

Thank you, she said. You should take these.

Natasha gave Alain the keys to her car. It’s yellow and parked out in the back, she said. I saw Villard and Katherine earlier. They really can’t wait to see you.

Thanks, Alain said, then he, too, took a step back.

Natasha gave the President, who was standing nearby, an apologetic look. She bowed nervously and showed him her nun’s robe. He shook his head in amazement. Natasha summoned the warmth and resolve of Sister Robert and walked up to her soon-to-be ex-husband and whispered in his ear. In this robe and in this line of work, she said, I can best help you take care of our people moving forward. Your courage after the quake inspired me. You can retire in peace now, Jean. You did good. It’s my turn. My work has just begun.

The President shivered. No one had called him by his given name in a long, long time. Her tenderness moved him. So did her determination. He nodded his approval and said good-bye. Bonne chance , he said. On tient le contact?

Bien sûr , Natasha said.

In the pink Haitian crepuscule, everyone in the rubbled cathedral took his or her appropriate place, and the first wedding ceremony after the earthquake began. It went off without a hitch.

Eights months later, a thin child was born in Miami. The earthquake taught us to expect the unexpected in life, didn’t it? her mother told the child’s ebullient father, Alain Destiné, adding, He seemed to have decided that you deserved a parting gift. The father named the baby Phoenix. Her uncle Jean called her Rose after the Alan Cavé song. Yes, the name of this child conceived in Haiti and born nine months after the devastating Haitian earthquake was Rose Phoenix Destiné. Her American friends called her Nicky. Nicky grew into a thin woman who didn’t know much about her mother. She learned her father had lost the bottom of his right leg in a great earthquake in Haiti and was led to believe her mother disappeared around then too. Her grandfather and her grandmother from her father’s side visited from Port-au-Prince frequently to shower her with gifts. Like clockwork, every other weekend, even after she moved to New York City and then Paris to study art, Nicky had another visitor from Haiti, an aunty, her mother’s twin, her father said. The nun ostensibly came to teach Nicky catechism and art. After Nicky became a successful artist in her own right and settled down in Miami, the nun continued to visit her regularly. By then they didn’t talk art or religion much anymore. They took long walks and hung out on Lincoln Road. At night, they laughed at her father’s attempts at cooking Haitian cuisine. The day he died, Nicky lamented she was completely alone in the world, an orphan. The kindly nun squeezed her hand and said, Not as long as I’m alive. Natasha then told her daughter the story of the love triangle and the disaster that surprisingly made everything right. All Nicky appreciated from the secret history of her parents was that, finally, she had someone on earth she could call maman. Like her mother, she hated to be alone.

Heartfelt thanks, for their support through the journey to publication, to my agent, Robert Guinsler; my editor, Tracy Sherrod Fumi, and the team at Amistad and HarperCollins; and Edwidge Danticat; Junot Díaz; Madison Smartt Bell; Andrea Lee; Gary Shteyngart; Dany Laferrière; my sister Yanick Léger; my big brother, Elias “Tilou” Léger, and his wife, Marie; my kid brother, Steve; uncle George Clervoix and his family; Tisha Shea Harty; Tjade Graves; Adam Bradley; Kelvin Bias; Jason Liu; Stéphane Vincent; Marvin Barksdale; Christian Provencher; Ken and Rebecca Kurson; Daniel Loedel; Geoff Shandler; and Chloe Tattanelli and her family in Florence. In Geneva: Anthony Nguyen; Linden Morrison; Marcus Brown; Fran Costello; Frédéric Savioz. In France: Marvin Agustus and Vanessa Huguenin; Dominic and Lauren Waughray; Mirjam Schoening and Henrik Naujoks; and Fabrice and Elisabeth David.

DIMITRY ELIAS LÉGERwas born in 1971 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Educated at St. John’s University and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, he is a former staff writer at the Miami Herald, Fortune magazine, and the Source magazine, the seminal hip-hop monthly, and also a contributor to the New York Times, Newsweek , and the Face magazine in the UK. In 2010, he worked as an advisor to the United Nations’ disaster recovery operations in Haiti after an earthquake. God Loves Haiti is his first novel. He lives between France and the United States with his family.

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